Hi skydivers! Me and 3 other rather new skydivers (400jumps) were planning on some jumps in Eloy AZ and some Tunnel Coaching time in Early November. When planning the trip we noticed that this is where the US Nationals 2012 are going to be held.

My questions are...since Ive never been in the Nationals as spectator.

It is possible for fun jumpers to jump meanwhile the Nationals are been held? If there is possibility to jump, what would be the number of jumps daily you can make average? The wind tunnel would be fully packed? Do you consider changing the dates??

Leading up to the start of each event expect the tunnel to be almost or 100% sold out. Once the draw for each even occurs the competitors are not allowed to use the tunnel for any training at all. So that means day 1 of 4 way RW no one will be using it unless they are working on 8 way or Freeflying. Tunnel time should free up once the event gets going but call as soon as possible to reserve your time now.

Fun jumpers are usually allowed to jump and you might even be able to find a few people to do a throw together team while you are there too if you are interested in it.

Usually they try to get the competitors in at least 6-7 jumps per day for their events so you can easily get on a good number of jumps but you will need to remember that they will send all the teams and you might only have 1-2 slots open on an Otter so if you are wanting to jump with a group it might be a while each day until enough slots are open to do that.

And there are enough planes at SDAZ to keep one plane for fun jumpers rotating through the rest of the planes even during 4way which is the busiest 2 days of the comp. Teams doing other events will be jumping for practice during those days, so you can be sure there will be non-comp loads for you to manifest on.

This being said, Nationals is like a boogie for performance oriented jumpers. And yes, there's beer. . It's a great time.

As Erk mentioned, tunnel time may be tough. Get in touch with the coaches you were thinking of using ASAP to book some time if there is some left.